Seasons of Love

by Forever without him

When Alison DiLaurentis is thrust into a world of choices between obligation & loyalty she makes an impossible decision. After spending three years without Emily Fields, she sets out to prove to the brunette that she's worth loving. As looming threats from their past emerge and an unexpected tragedy unfolds, they learn to lean on one another. Canon-Divergent. Rating may change.

31. Heated

A/N: It feels like it's been 84 years since I last updated, but I promise I haven't forgotten this fandom.

In fact, I *may* be writing another Emison fic that's a a little dark and twisty (though nowhere near the level of "Infatuation" dark and twisty). Don't know if I'm going to share yet. Gotta let the inner critic throw hands first.

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Chapter 30:

Heated

Emily hadn't said much of anything during the ride to the Alliance.

Alison had a lot of questions, but her agent had called and the blonde was having trouble getting off the phone.

The call finally ended as they were walking into the building.

"Sorry. That was prep for the presser we're doing to promote the show this afternoon." Alison shoved her phone in her bag and paced next to Emily.

"You're going to have security there, right?" Emily waved at Max as they walked by the game room.

He was sitting with Jose and Elena playing MouseTrap. The girl seemed to be in better spirits than she'd been at the beach. Jose was speaking to her in Spanish, but they were in too much of a rush to hear what he was saying.

"Not if I hire them to tail you when you're at work and school instead." Alison retorted.

It didn't sound like she was joking.

Emily stopped at the front desk. One of the regulars was sitting there playing on her phone. She looked up when she realized they were standing over her.

"Oh, hey Emily. Alison." Her grin widened when she looked at the blonde. "What's up?"

"I'm looking for Samara." Emily felt her fingers curling into anxious fists by her sides.

Alison noticed it, too. She slid her hand over Emily's and pried her fingers apart, slipping her fingertips seamlessly into the brunette's palm. She felt her loosen up.

"She's back near the Support Services meeting room. She said something about stocking the supply closet back there."

The supply closet was next to the meeting room, which meant that their friend was keeping an eye on their visitor.

"Thanks." Emily forced a smile.

"Hey Alison, are you still open to collabing on a video for my sister's graduation? It's in a couple of weeks."

"Sure." She felt Emily pulling away, moving towards the hallway. "I'll be in touch soon."

She followed her girlfriend.

When it was just the two of them again Alison grabbed her hand.

"Jesus, slow down, Emily." She pulled on her arm. "We haven't even talked about what we're going to say to him."

"What are you doing here? is what I was planning to go with." Emily shrugged.

They turned a corner and nearly ran into Samara. She was outside the supply closet with a small cart filled with random items.

"Oh, good. I can stop pretending to do inventory." Samara moved the cart aside. She gestured to the window of the meeting room. "He hasn't done anything sketchy, but given that most of the kids that come here for help don't have family to help them...I was worried about his intentions."

It took Emily a second to remember that the man had come there under false pretenses. He'd mentioned something about looking for his child to Samara. Samara was just watching out for their kids.

"Thanks." Emily smiled.

"No problem. I'm going to run by the game room to check on Max and the others. But yell if you need me."

"I think we'll be okay." Emily reached for the door. She turned back. "Hey, can you do me a favor and keep this between us?"

"Discretion is one of the things we do best here." Samara nodded.

Emily thanked her and then pushed the door open.

Alison watched Samara put the cart away and walk down the hallway. Then she followed Emily into the room and shut the door.

He looked up from a folder he had on the table and stood to greet them.

"Emily." His eyes were soft and kind. He looked remorseful. "I'm so sorry if I scared you..."

"Were you following me yesterday?" Emily jumped right into the inquisition.

Alison jerked her head towards Emily, the news a surprise to her. Emily hadn't said anything about being followed.

"He's been stalking you and you didn't think to tell me?" She glared at Emily, a "we'll talk about this later" expression in her narrow gaze.

"Not stalking. I swear." He held his hands up passively. "I was trying to find a good time and place to talk to you. I saw you at the beach last night. I thought about talking to you then because it was the first time I saw you without a cop detail on you."

"Not making yourself sound any less creepy." Alison uttered.

"They have cops assigned to watch us?" Emily asked, though she wasn't entirely surprised.

"Seems more like a precaution than anything else," he responded. "They weren't at the beach, which is why I was there. But it seemed inappropriate to approach you given that you were trying to help that kid."

"That was a wise decision. I'd kill for the kids I work with." Emily took a step forward.

His mask of stoicism dissipated and a timid smile tugged at his lips.

"Didn't you have a thing for saving lost souls back in high school, too?"

"I'm sorry, who are you?" Alison hadn't recognized his face when he called, but Emily certainly had and she was just now realizing he hadn't introduced himself.

"We never officially met." The tall black gentleman reached a hand out to shake Alison's. "I'm afraid I left town before you returned."

"That is probably the smartest thing anyone in our circle has ever done." Alison didn't give away any emotion.

She faced Emily, waiting on an explanation.

"Alison, this is Eddie." Emily still couldn't quite believe she was looking at the same sweet young man she'd met when she went to visit Spencer at Radley. "He worked at Radley."

Eddie Lamb hadn't been a huge part of their lives, but he'd tried to help them a few times.

"It's Monty, actually. I used my middle name Edward when I was working with patients in Rosewood. I didn't want to put the people I care about in danger. Eddie seemed to stick."

"So you live here now?" Emily questioned.

"Not here. I'm in a small town outside LA. Freeridge." Eddie-Monty smiled. "Rosewood came with too much drama, so I booked it out of town."

"I'm going to go out on a limb and assume you aren't really here looking for your kid?" Emily asked.

"Not in the biological sense. But I wasn't lying about trying to find some of my kids. I know we only crossed paths a time or two back east, but I did care about you girls. When I found out you were in trouble again I couldn't let it go. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you last night. I was trying to figure out how to get your attention without tipping off the FBI. I thought meeting here was the safest bet."

He sat down at the table and motioned for them to sit with him.

"You really think the cops are tailing us?" Emily asked.

"Pretty sure. But they don't track you here. I guess they assume since you have security out front that you're safe."

Alison had to hold back a frustrated eye-roll. Because one of the people Charlotte had helping her was a cop. A cop in Rosewood, but still in law enforcement.

"How did you stay off their radar?" Emily took a tentative seat next to him.

"By keeping my distance. Like I said, I was just looking for an opening…" He reached for something in his jacket.

Alison immediately jumped to worst-case scenario. She found herself wondering if Emily had grabbed her gun out of the safe. She moved forward, ready to tackle the man out of his seat.

The brunette didn't seem uneasy. She studied his face, searching for an answer that belonged to a question she hadn't asked yet. When she turned to face her girlfriend she saw the tension in her stance.

"He's not going to hurt us. Samara wouldn't have left us in here alone if she hadn't already had him screened by security." Emily assured her.

"The blonde who was keeping tabs on me?" He asked. "Yeah, she didn't need security. She frisked me herself. Rather roughly." There was a hint of humor in his expression, but it faded. "I'm going to take an educated guess based on her reaction that things must be getting really bad here."

"Rosewood found its way back to us." Alison grumbled as she sat next to Emily. "It always has."

"Still is." He gestured to himself.

The older man pulled out another folder and sat it on the table.

"Before I get into all this you should know I'm just the middle man. It wasn't my idea to come out here…"

"That's not a very promising start." Alison grimaced.

"I'm just telling you not to shoot the messenger." The unstable baritone in his voice was easy to read.

When Emily saw the look on his face it all but confirmed what she suspected.

I know how to find you.

They had been waiting on someone else to find them, but their old teacher's message hadn't specified what he meant when he'd texted them.

"He sent you, didn't he?" Emily asked, looking Eddie directly in the eyes.

Of course Ezra wouldn't come himself. He knew how much they hated him. He was too much of a coward.

"He told me how to find you. As much as I hate him, I saw what Rosewood did to you. And while I don't want to be involved in any of this, I thought about what I would want for my little girl."

"You have kids?" Emily's eyes lit up in surprise.

"One." A look washed across his face that Emily recognized. The love of a father for his child. "She's my world. She's the reason people back east only know me as Eddie. I was protecting her. I would do anything for her."

Emily had to fight back the torrent of emotions about her own father.

"How safe is your daughter if you're risking being seen here with us?" Alison asked.

"I was careful. Besides, nothing in this folder can be traced. Not digitally, anyway." He laid two fingers on the folder and pushed it towards the girls.

Alison looked at it as if she expected it to explode, but Emily reached for it. She clearly trusted Eddie.

"He has always been very careful about leaving a paper trail when it comes to secrets of this caliber." Eddie filled the awkward silence in the room. "And he's upped the scale of his paranoia. Because whoever is messing with you threatened his little brother."

"Wes?" Alison asked. "That doesn't make any sense."

"He said his brother was driving a car that was deliberately trying to hit him." Emily's brow knitted in confusion.

"He didn't say anything about that. When was this?" Eddie asked.

"About two weeks ago." Emily replied.

"That's around the time he reached out to me. But…" Eddie shook his head. "Whoever was driving that car couldn't have been Wesley Fitzgerald. That kid fought really hard to go the opposite route of his screwed up family. He works in humanitarian aid. Last I heard he was in the middle east."

"How do you know that?" Alison pulled back, staring at Eddie in suspicion.

"He asked one of the doctors I used to work with for a reference. He'd done a collab with the physician in the children's ward. A program for literacy and community development. He's a compassionate guy from what I'm told. Not surprised he ended up traveling to help underprivileged communities."

"Ezra said he'd been traveling, too." Emily frowned.

He'd always acted like he had a wanderlust calling to him in the world. But the only lust he'd truly had was the inappropriate lusting he'd used to Aria's disadvantage.

"Yeah, he told me. Europe. Didn't take much for me to figure out why. I know that man. I know how he operates…how he researches." A dark flicker came to life in his soft expressive eyes. "I also know that he knows how to get answers."

"That asshole is nothing is not persistent." Alison seethed quietly in her hatred.

"No kidding. He used to ask me for my help when I worked at Radley all the time. I told him no. And I kept telling him no."

"Why did you help us?" Emily asked. "You barely knew us."

"Because you were just kids. And I didn't buy what the rumor mill in Rosewood was saying about you. My baby girl didn't either. She was only eight at the time, but she was very insistent that you were innocent. I got called to her elementary school after she called a fifth grade teacher some choice words when she heard the teacher gossiping about the Pretty Little Liars in the hallway."

"I didn't realize we were Grade-School Famous." Alison deadpanned.

"My daughter is the reason I started taking a closer look at what was happening when Spencer showed up at Radley. She was completely catatonic at first. But when she came around we started to talk. She was careful about what she said, but it was enough for me to look into a few things."

"Like what?" Emily peered at the file curiously.

"It started with Mona. I knew that much. I had worked with her when she came to Radley, too. She was very difficult in the beginning, but she eventually evened out. We would play board games. And I gave her puzzles to do. Things to keep her mind occupied. She didn't go into a lot of detail, but I knew the reason she was there. Knowing my patients was part of my job. And over the years…something I've learned that not even a PHD can buy you is that unless you actually listen to your patients you'll never understand how to help them."

"Spencer said when she was there that you were the only one who treated her like a human being." Emily exhaled quietly.

When Spencer had gone missing the rest of the girls had been frantic.

"She came in so broken." He looked down sadly. "She was also remarkably put together in an odd way. The doctors thought she was mute from catatonic trauma. They thought she couldn't talk. I spent a little time with her and could see in her eyes that she just didn't want to talk. When she finally did start talking the first thing she did was thanked me."

"We were so worried when we couldn't find her," Emily felt tears burning her eyes. They had been afraid that Spencer's disappearance was going to turn out like Alison's. "I'm glad she had you to look out for her."

"I did what I could. By that time I knew I was working with some shady people. I kept an eye out for her. Logged every interaction I knew about. Doctors. Nurses. Everyone who came in." He scowled. "Ezra called once. I didn't tell him anything. Spencer told me he shared her private medical files and used it to turn everyone against her. So when he called inquiring about her I told him that if he contacted Radley again he was going to find himself on the receiving end of trouble."

"But he clearly called again." Alison gestured to him, indicating that Ezra had sent him. "He clearly kept in touch with you. Why is he comfortable calling you? Why does he trust you?"

Her real question was "why should we trust you?" but she managed to keep a lid on her temper.

"After I told him to stay away from Radley…and away from Spencer, he kept his distance. But then a few weeks later he called again. I was ready to call the cops on him, but he didn't ask about Spencer. He wanted something else."

"Research." Emily thought about what Toby had said about Ezra insinuating the town was toxic.

"This town is a heaping trashcan on fire. And if you stay here long enough it will rot your brain."

"He said it was a matter of life and death. I thought he was full of shit. But then I pulled the files on the names he gave me. I never thought I'd get involved…" He shook his head and sighed. "It was stupid. Because someone found out I was looking. They threatened my daughter. And that's all it took for me to decide it wasn't worth the trouble. It wasn't worth my child's life to go into business with that man."

A look of uncertainty washed across his features. Emily recognized it in the way he set his jaw. It was something her father had always done.

"I'm not exactly proud that I left you in a lurch, but I had to look out for my baby girl." Eddie leaned forward and dipped his head apologetically.

"She's lucky she has an adult in her life who cares. Most of us didn't have that benefit." Alison didn't mean for it to come out spiteful, but her tongue tasted like venom. "Getting your kid out of Rosewood is the best thing you could have done for her."

"Still, I could have handled it better. I did try to tell Aria what was going on before we left." He ran his fingers against the stubble on his chin. "I ran into her when she was volunteering at Radley, but that place wasn't exactly ideal for private chats. I didn't get a chance to say much of anything to her. She had questions about a picture someone had drawn. Before we got to the meat of it there was an altercation with a patient who was having a meltdown over that picture. She insisted she'd drawn it and that Aria stole it. But it wasn't that girl's drawing. It was Bethany Young's."

"That's when we were looking for the truth about Toby's mom and Bethany. That drawing ended up at Aria's house after everything went down at Radley." Emily had only seen the picture once.

The imagery had given her the creeps. It was a drawing of a beast coming out of the ground and someone who bore a very similar likeness to Jessica DiLaurentis sitting in a garden. In a way, it had been prophetic, because Bethany had ended up buried in the DiLaurentis yard.

"I left that drawing for Aria because Spencer had been relentless about getting answers about Marion Cavanaugh…about what really happened to her. They both had a lot of questions about Bethany that I couldn't answer. I didn't have all the answers, but before I left town I wanted Aria to know you were on the right track."

"So Charlotte wasn't lying about what happened in Radley." Alison bit her lip. "About Bethany killing Toby's mother."

"That's one of the things she was honest about, but no one believed her." Eddie confirmed. "Bethany is the one who killed Marion Cavanaugh. Charlotte had nothing to do with it. She had always been a good kid, at least before that night."

Is that when she decided she wanted to stop feeling things? Alison wondered.

Had watching a woman being pushed to her death and then taking the blame for it turned her sister into a monster?

Because something had changed that sweet little child who held her hand on the ski slopes and made her Valentine's Day cards into the cruel person she was now.

"I never believed Bethany's story about what happened that night, but unfortunately Darren Wilden and the other authorities didn't care." The sneer on Eddie's face told the girls that he liked Wilden about as much as he liked Ezra. "Charlotte bore the brunt of the blame. Poor kid didn't even know what hit her."

"It changed her," Alison said quietly.

She hadn't been there to see it happen, but she knew Charlotte had snapped for a reason.

"It changed her in many ways." Eddie replied sadly. "Charlotte and Bethany hated one another after that."

Which is how Bethany had ended up in a shallow grave. Charlotte swore Bethany was going to hurt her family. Alison believed it was true, but she also knew that part of what Charlotte had done had been for her own pleasure.

Charlotte had loved her sister and her mother, but she also had urges she couldn't control. Rash urges born from a need to have control…no matter the cost.

"When Spencer and Aria came to Radley seeking answers about Bethany…about all the cover-ups and all the murders…I realized that whatever Ezra was seeking wasn't just some fantasy. Especially after I was targeted…and my daughter was targeted," he sighed. "I showed my hand to the devil when I gave in after they threatened her. They knew I couldn't go to the cops, because the cops were in on it."

"I'm sorry you were dragged into it." Emily's eyes were soft in sympathy.

"Not your fault. They figured out my weakness was the kids I looked after. Aria included. Whoever was watching us knew I was going to tell Aria the truth. And they knew I'd back down if she was in danger, so they sent me a message. The next bullet won't miss. It was a picture of Aria. Her eyes had been scratched out. I didn't know exactly what it meant until I remembered that Ezra had been shot in New York."

"That bullet was meant for me." Alison shuddered at the memory.

"Which is exactly why I had to pull back." Eddie explained. "I had to find a way to leave you a message without actually leaving you a message. I called Ezra the next day and told him he could have the files, but that he had to tell you all everything that he found. He agreed, so I dropped off what he needed and then booked it out of town. Haven't looked back since. Never thought I'd see or hear from him again."

"Yet here you are." Alison narrowed her eyes in skepticism. "Why?"

"Two weeks ago I found a package at the data center hub where I check in with my team weekly. I ran it through a scanner to make sure there wasn't anything suspicious in it."

"You have that kind of equipment on hand?" Alison asked. "Are you a cop? Is that how you know the cops are trailing us?"

"God, no." He scoffed at the question. "I'm a supervisor at a trucking company. I work with my fleet manager on drivers and deliveries. Sometimes we have to screen shipments, so it was easy enough to check the package. There were only two things inside. A cell phone and a brand new SIM card. The first eight digits of the SIM's serial number was my birthday, so I knew it was meant for me. The last ten digits looked like a phone number…with a Pennsylvania area code."

"Did you call that number?" Emily asked.

"Not at first. I wanted nothing to do with it, so I shoved it in a locker at work and left it there for a week. But it was bothering me. The next week when I checked in at that station I went to the locker after I clocked out. I put the SIM card in and charged the phone. When I turned it on there was a message with several different coordinates waiting for me. All local to where I live. All of them were post offices. I debated on taking the SIM card out and smashing both it and the phone, but a text came through before I could."

Eddie reached for his cell phone. He held the device in his hands and unlocked it. He scrolled for a few seconds until he found what he was looking for.

When he turned the phone to show them the screen they saw a picture of the text that he'd gotten on the burner phone. He zoomed in to show them the image. It was a screenshot of an old news article about Alison's return to Rosewood. In the picture Alison was standing next to Emily outside the police station. Attached to the image was a text.

They're in danger. I need your help.

"The second I saw it was about you I knew I couldn't just walk away again. Especially after I heard about them reopening your mother's murder case." He looked at Alison.

"Yeah, that's been super fun to relive." Alison rolled her eyes.

"I think it's brave that you are facing it head on." When his response earned another skeptical look from the blonde he explained, "My kid follows you on social media. People talk. Admittedly, I don't know what they talk about, but I do know enough to know that you had to put out a statement about whatever is happening back in Rosewood. That's why I didn't destroy that phone. And it's why I called the phone number that was hidden within the serial number."

"That's some high level paranoia, even for Ezra." Emily frowned.

"Everything about the situation was weird. I didn't expect to get an answer, but I got one. When I realized I was talking to him I hung up. He called back and begged me to hear him out."

"You know he's a serial liar, right?" Emily scoffed.

"Yeah. I took everything he said with a grain of salt. I started by asking him about the post office locations he'd sent. He said at the first location I would be picking up a key to a post office box at the second location. The second location had a fake ID and a key to a safe deposit box in the name of my fake ID. That would get me to the key at the final location. When I asked him what was so important that I needed an alias to go on a scavenger hunt for he said that he was being watched."

Alison and Emily glanced at one another. Ezra had implied that he was being watched when they texted him at the Boardwalk from the burner phone. They hadn't used their names, but his response had been filled with paranoia,

Not safe. If they find out I'm talking to you it will make things worse.

Now that they knew someone was threatening his brother, it made perfect sense why he'd reacted so strongly to their text.

"He wouldn't tell me who was watching him, but he told me it connected to the files I'd given him back in Rosewood." Eddie interrupted their thoughts. "He admitted that he didn't tell you all everything he found in his research back then. He didn't think the stuff he discovered was relevant to what you all were searching for at the time."

"I guess years later it warranted another look." Emily frowned. "I still don't get why he pulled you into it."

"I don't either. I haven't even thought about Rosewood since I left. I wanted nothing to do with that town. My best guess is that no one would think to connect me to this after all these years. I'm not exactly someone who likes the public light. I don't even know how he found me. I lay pretty low."

"He's a professional stalker." There was no humor in Emily's voice.

Eddie didn't disagree.

"Turns out the stalker is being stalked. He told me his cabin had been ransacked. He said the last time someone turned his place upside down it was related to the records I gave him from Radley. He wanted to know if I knew of anyone who would still be seeking those records."

"Whose records were they?" Alison asked.

"One record was for a transfer that never arrived." He opened the folder to reveal the name. "Theodore Kim."

Alison cringed when she pictured the grave back in Rosewood with a baby in it. It made her feel even worse that someone was using the child's name.

"What stopped the transfer?" Emily asked.

Besides the fact that Theodore Kim was dead?

Before Eddie answered he looked at Alison apologetically.

"From what I could see in the notes that weren't redacted, a Board member got into a heated argument with one of the physicians about the patient."

"How did Ezra even know to give you the name Theodore Kim?" Emily questioned.

What had he discovered in his research to reach that wayward conclusion?

"Because the first file he asked me for was Mary Drake's." His eyes found Alison's again. "Of course, there wasn't much to find by that time. The file was very sparse and lacking a lot of information. Someone got to it before I did."

"My mom?" Alison guessed.

She had served on the Board to keep an eye on Charlotte. She also had very personal reasons to react so strongly to the name Theodore Kim and to tamper with Mary Drake's file.

"That's his theory." He tapped the folder. Once, then twice. "Mine, too. Especially since he told me the real Theodore Kim couldn't have possibly been the name of the patient being transferred because the real Theodore Kim was killed by Mary Drake when he was a child. Ezra had the name in his old notes for some book he was writing…"

"It was about me." Alison growled harshly, cutting Eddie off. "He was writing a creepy book about the fourteen-year-old girl he was obsessed with."

"He didn't tell me that." Eddie clutched the edge of his chair, his knuckles tightening.

He looked like he was ready to throw a punch into Ezra's face.

"What else did he tell you about Mary?" Emily reached for Alison's hand.

Alison bit her lip and squeezed Emily's hand appreciatively.

"There wasn't anything noteworthy in her chart. Theodore's name was never mentioned. Her pregnancy with Charlotte wasn't documented either. Ezra thought he'd hit a dead end until he connected the dots about the patient transfer that never happened. There was apparently never a death certificate issued for Theodore Kim."

Which explained why Caleb hadn't been able to find anything about Theodore being dead. The only physical proof that existed was in the cemetery in Rosewood.

"Someone probably paid off the medical examiner's office." Eddie offered an answer.

"The rich truly have no problem they can't make disappear with money." Alison growled spitefully. "I can't believe I never realized how privileged being wealthy was when I was younger."

She was horrified by the thought that her family might have done something to buy off the death of a child to keep it quiet.

"My aunt killed a kid." Her eyes were watering with rage-induced tears. "She took someone's child away from them and all this time…no one remembers…or cares."

"I wouldn't say no one." Eddie's eyes softened as he watched Alison's body vibrate in anger. "I wouldn't be here if no one cared."

"Yeah, but all of this is according to Ezra." Emily sighed. "Did he tell you why he was doing any of this? Because I don't really buy that he suddenly developed a conscience. I don't trust him. We can't believe anything that man says."

"It's not him talking." Eddie gently replied. "He knew you wouldn't want to see him. For good reason. Trust me, I despise him, too. But the records came from Radley. Everything he's discovered is authentic."

"Do you still have the phone he sent you?" Emily was ready to call and give him a piece of her mind.

"He told me to destroy it for my own safety. So after we were done talking I smashed the SIM card and threw it into a bog. And then I ran the phone over with a 40 ton truck. Dust." He lightly tapped his palms together as if he was wiping something off of them.

"Did he say anything about how we're supposed to follow up with him?" Alison questioned.

"No. He's been radio silent for a week. But I've got all the records he mailed." Eddie eyed the paperwork in front of him. "That's what the fake ID and wild goose chase were about."

He plucked several bank statements out of the pile. They were identical to the ones Caleb had showed them when he discovered Ezra's father's financial secrets.

"He said he's still trying to figure this part out. There is someone out there who is very rich thanks to his father."

"Maybe his family and my family were in on the Teddy murder cover-up together." Alison leaned back in her chair, pouting.

"Stranger things have happened." Emily took the papers from Eddie.

"That's what he thought until he started digging into his dad's finances more, which led him to this…"

The next sheet of paper looked like a giant math problem filled with bars and lines that had spikes in them.

"Is that a DNA profile?" Emily asked as Eddie slipped the papers over to her.

The bars and lines looked similar, but not exactly the same.

"It is. These two profiles share some of the same markers. This is DNA from Ezra's father." Eddie pointed to the first piece of paper. He moved to the second sheet. "This person is a mystery. Ezra said he compared the mystery DNA to his own DNA profile he had run when he was fighting his ex for custody."

Emily had nearly forgotten about Ezra's ex-girlfriend bringing a little boy named Malcolm into his life and lying about his paternity. She certainly had no love for Ezra, but it was hard not to feel something for him when he'd learned the truth. He'd been broken when the boy had been taken away from him, though it was in the kid's best interest.

"All three share DNA." Eddie pointed to each DNA profile. "But Ezra and the Unknown don't have the same maternal DNA. Just paternal."

"So a sibling?" Emily tried to make sense of all the data in front of them.

"Could it be Wes?" Alison asked, picking up the second profile.

"No. This DNA profile was done before Wes was born." Emily pointed to the date on the paper. "That's what changed. That's why he's been looking into this again. His dad did something."

"I don't get what any of this has to do with us." Alison shuffled through the papers. "This seems more like a Fitzgerald Family Soap Opera."

"I'd be inclined to agree…" Eddie quietly paused, "…if your mother hadn't tampered with her sister's file and then completely lost it over the name Theodore Kim."

Alison knew he was right. The Drake-DiLaurentis family and the Kim's had some kind of connection.

Teddy.

"But Teddy died. Long before any of this is dated." Alison argued. "And my mom and my aunt are dead, too. Emily and I weren't born until years after what happened to that poor kid. Charlotte wouldn't have known about him either. Mary was institutionalized for five years before she gave birth. And Ezra was a fetus when this profile was run."

She made a face, like her brain couldn't comprehend Ezra Fitz as a baby.

I bet he wore little Polo shirts and pleated pants.

"It is weird." Emily agreed. "What does a DNA profile linked to Ezra's family have to do with a toddler that died long before any of us were alive?"

"Why do the worst families produce the most children?" Alison asked. "I can't believe there are more egocentric pretentious billionaires with Fitzgerald blood running around in society." The flash of her nail polish caught her attention for the briefest of moments and she frowned at her manicure before she continued, "And yes, I realize the irony of me talking about affluent families who can't keep it in their pants."

"Your parents' indiscretions are not yours to bear." Eddie's rich tone was laden with paternal care.

"Except when you know about those indiscretions." Alison had been taught to lie at an early age.

Lying was all she had ever known. Sometimes when it came to family, people would choke down those lies and hold on to them.

Was that what was going on with Ezra? As much as they all despised him, Alison understood what it was like to have shitty parents. If he'd been conditioned to protect his family at an early age maybe he hadn't allowed himself to open himself up to the truth about what his father was doing in hotels or why he was paying millions of dollars to a random account.

Maybe Ezra had found himself caught between family ties and secrets that could destroy the legacy of the Fitzgeralds.

What did you do, Ezra?

More importantly, what did he know? And why was he getting involved now?

He had a complex relationship with his parents. He didn't like them, but he did care about his baby brother. Would that kind of protection extend to others who shared his DNA?

"Who was driving that car?" Toby had asked after pummeling the older man.

After some convincing, Ezra had replied,

"It was my brother."

What if Ezra had been trying to tell Toby something? Something that he couldn't say outright without risking Wes's life? Or what if he didn't know yet and he was just assuming? Was he trying to get more proof or were they supposed to figure it out with the file he sent?

When Alison looked at the paperwork it looked like a bomb again. Someone didn't want Ezra to tell them the information he'd provided. That same someone had already threatened his brother. What would this person do to Eddie…or his daughter…if they found out he'd given them the file?

"Did Ezra say anything else about any of this? Does he have any idea who the DNA could belong to?" Alison stared at the folder.

"This is all he sent to me. I don't think he has solid proof of anything yet, but it sounds like he's got a plan to get the evidence he needs. He told me he would follow up, but it's been a week and I haven't heard anything else from him."

Emily quietly thumbed through all the pages. It was too much information to process.

Alison opened her mouth to speak, but it felt like sandpaper and cotton. She cleared her throat, trying to hide her discomfort.

Ezra had messed her up.

Wilden had picked up where Ezra left off.

And Charlotte had destroyed what was left of her.

"Did he say anything else about Radley other than digging into my family history? Anything about doctors or other people working there?" Alison questioned.

"No." Eddie shook his head.

"When you worked at Radley, did you know anyone named James or JJ or Jimmy?"

He contemplated the question, searching the banks of his memory for answers.

Emily grabbed her phone and pulled up a screenshot of the man and held the screen out for Eddie to see.

He took his time looking at the picture.

"He does look familiar." He scratched the stubble on his chin. "But those types always do."

"Those types?" Alison looked to him to elaborate.

"Young guys with a badge and power going to their heads. All the guards were around the same age. And they came from similar backgrounds. Usually law enforcement."

"Did they interact with the patients?" Emily tried to recall her visit to Welby during the holidays.

She tried to remember if she'd seen the rent-a-cop there.

"Not typically…unless they were instructed to, but that doesn't mean they didn't. Some of them played fast and loose with the rules. But never on my watch." He sat up straight in his chair, making him appear much taller even though he was still seated. "Unfortunately, I wasn't there 24/7. Some people would turn a blind eye to what was a clear power imbalance between patients and staff. I tried reporting it, but it only pissed people off."

"I can't imagine who would get mad that you were looking out for people who were vulnerable." Alison said softly.

She wished she'd had someone like Eddie actually try to advocate for her.

"The people who were doing it. That's why I clashed with so many of the men I didn't know coming through there that were doing rotations for security or for med school."

"What about Wren Kingston?" Emily felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand at attention. "Did you ever butt heads with him?"

"The British guy?" Eddie frowned. "Everyone loved him, but I didn't like him at all." His expression soured. "As a parent you develop an instinct about people like that. He seemed inviting and harmless, but I didn't like him to be alone with the younger patients. He was always with Mona, back before her treatment started to take effect. I never caught him doing anything inappropriate…"

But he would. Emily thought back to all the times he'd gone after Spencer. He'd even kissed Hanna once.

"He always gave me bad vibes. He wasn't the only one either. I didn't have any proof that anything was going on, but I reported all odd behavior anyway. HR didn't believe me. None of the patients ever said an ill word against their doctors. After I started reporting inappropriate behavior most of the staff and the patients were really cold with me."

"Why would the patients be mad?" Alison asked.

"They would swear up and down that they wanted the attention. But trust me, half of them weren't in their right mind. And statistically speaking, abuse occurs often in settings like Radley."

"Was anyone ever overly-interested in my sister?"

"I wasn't there when she was initially admitted as a child. I came a few years later. She was probably around twelve or so. She was a lively kid. Bright. Never really understood why she was there. Even after the incident with Marion Cavanaugh. She cried that night. Swore she didn't do it."

Alison felt something inside of her chest being ripped open. Charlotte had been a scared child with no one in her life. It didn't excuse her behavior, but it did explain a lot.

Why did mom and dad do that to her?

"You said you believed her, right?" Emily asked.

"I did, but there was no proof. They moved her to a different ward with higher security after that. I didn't see much of her after the move. But I do know that she was skilled when it came to flying under the radar. When I did see her she was friendly, but she wasn't too friendly. It was as if she felt she was being watched…which is a fair assessment, because there were eyes on her. But she made a performance out of everything…and I have always known it was for more than my benefit. Someone else was watching."

"Or she was watching someone." Alison suggested. "Bethany…and who else?"

"I wish I knew." Eddie reached up to scratch his brow, his eyes narrowed on the information they had in front of them. He looked very much like Toby when the younger guy was deep in thought. "There is so much paperwork here, and it's not like he sent an instruction guide with it. I'm afraid I have no idea where to go from here."

Emily and Alison looked at one another, the same thought crossing each of their minds.

Emily took stock of his features.

He'd aged a few years, but still had his youthful appearance. Beyond that, the stress he was carrying around could be seen in the discoloration of the bags under his eyes.

Alison raked her eyes over him. He looked like he hadn't slept in days.

They came to a silent decision together.

"This isn't on you." Emily reached for the files. "I'm sorry he involved you in the first place. I appreciate you doing all this, but it wouldn't be fair to involve you beyond this. It would be unbelievably short-sighted and selfish."

"I think part of the reason that he picked me is because he knew I wouldn't be able to just leave you…"

"We're not kids anymore." Emily interjected softly. "And we know how this game works. We've been running around in circles doing this for years. The last thing we need is for you to get pulled into it."

Eddie's phone lit up and vibrated against the table. An image of a little girl who was the spitting image of the man sitting at the table popped up on screen.

"Think about your kid." Alison nodded towards the screen.

He sighed and looked at the text from his daughter.

"She's been asking me for weeks about this party she's been planning. One of her best friends is having a Quinceañera. I've been helping with the venue. That's where she thinks I'm at right now." He picked his phone up and smiled. "She's very persistent."

Emily felt a pang in her stomach.

All she had left of her father was memories. She cherished them all. She wouldn't be able to live with herself if she took someone else's father away from them.

She could only imagine the lengths her father would have gone to in order to protect her if she had told him what was happening back in Rosewood. With Eddie and his daughter the roles were reversed. He knew about the danger. And he'd gotten his kid out of it the second he could. She would never begrudge him for that.

"Feels wrong to just dump this on you and leave." Eddie shook his head, his eyes still glued to his daughter's text. "Especially considering the person who sent it."

"You're the one who told us not to shoot the messenger." Emily flashed an uneasy smile.

"Besides, we're much savvier than we used to be." Alison scooted closer to Emily to present them as a united front. "We'll figure it out."

Before Eddie could argue his phone started beeping again.

"I don't suppose either of you knows the difference between Vsco Basic Pink and Barbie Girl Pink?" He looked thoroughly confused.

Emily looked over at Alison as if to say, "That's all you, babe."

"Oh, you're speaking my language." Alison's eyes flashed in delight.

She quickly walked Eddie through his daughter's text, which turned out to be a simple question about the superior shade of pink.

An hour later they were no closer to the truth about Ezra's mysterious research, but Eddie had learned pro-tips on how to impress his daughter and about how to keep the dad-cringe to a minimum.

Armed with the most in-date fashion trends and the coolest bands, he set off to plan the best Quinceañera on his block.

"You kids be careful. I wish I had been of more help to you."

"You helped plenty. Time for you to go plan the best teenage block party this side of California." Alison grinned.

She knew all too well what it was like having parents who weren't involved…parents who didn't care. Eddie's little girl was lucky.

"I don't know about the party." He reached up and rubbed the back of his neck with a chuckle. "Teenagers aren't easy. I'd just as soon face off with a stalker from Rosewood than a group of fifteen-year-old girls. Sure you don't need me here?"

"This is more than enough. Thank you, Eddie…Monty." Emily corrected herself. It was safer for him for Eddie Lamb to be a figment of the past. "Good luck with the pack of wild teens."

He smiled. Fatherhood looked good on him.

They said their goodbyes, but not before Eddie told them if they got in a bind and they had nowhere else to turn to reach out to him.

When they escorted him out Samara watched from a respectable distance to make sure everyone stayed safe. When they walked back inside she asked them if they were hungry.

"I'm going to assume you skipped breakfast so you could book it out here for…whatever that was." She waved in the general direction of the meeting room. "I'm ordering brunch. What do you want?"

She looked at her phone and scrolled through numerous options of food and added several items to an order she'd already started.

"Brunch?" Emily chuckled. "Seriously?"

It seemed so normal. Were they even brunch people?

"Don't mock me when I'm hungry." Samara feigned a frown. "Zoe is picking it up. Hanna is catching a ride with her. She said something about how you ignored her request for caffeine when you left her this morning. She did not sound happy about it."

"Great." Alison tried to smile, but it came out as a grimace when she clenched her teeth.

Acting normal around Hanna on a regular day was difficult enough. Acting normal around her with a new powder keg of secrets ripe to explode was going to be nearly impossible.

"Did Zoe say when they'll be here?" Emily glanced towards the meeting room.

They didn't have long to sort through everything Eddie had brought them, but they could try and get in some extra sleuthing.

"Not sure, but the order is from Dinah's Dinner. And you can't rush perfection." Samara submitted her order and looked up from her phone. "You're getting a sample platter because I basically ordered everything on the menu for the crew here today."

"Thanks." Emily managed a more genuine smile than Alison had moments ago. "We're just going to finish up in the meeting room."

"Cool. Unrelated…do we need extra security today for any reason?" She cocked her head and lifted her brows.

That was her way of asking if their meeting with Eddie had been okay.

"We're good." Emily shook her head.

They left Samara to her paperwork and walked back into the meeting room.

"Hanna is coming." Alison said quietly, like she might be overheard in the empty room.

"It's okay. It's going to be okay." Emily leaned forward to kiss Alison's temple.

"What are we going to do about all of this?" Alison questioned, eyeballing the folder with answers they hadn't discovered yet.

Emily's eyes narrowed as she focused on all the paperwork they had to add to their growing theories.

She paused a beat and then nodded confidently.

"Flee the country and leave it in Tanner's claws?" Emily shrugged.

"Marco seems like the better of the two options." Alison pursed her lips. "Tanner would probably hire sharks to find us. Literal sharks. We could be sipping Margaritas on the beach and they'd find us and drag us through the ocean to some water-base where Tanner would be waiting with a scathing speech about…something."

Alison looked at a digital clock on the wall just as Emily's phone chimed.

Emily peered at the alert on her phone.

"We could never leave our friends behind. Not like this," Emily said softly. "We'll take this as it comes. I'm not worried about Hanna. You can charm her with your fashion bond."

The response garnered a real smile from Alison.

Hanna and Alison had been at odds for a long time when they were younger. Alison had treated her miserably. Hanna had every reason to hate her, but now they were closer than ever.

Emily swiped her calendar app open.

"And Aria?" Alison questioned.

"No way in hell are we telling her we reached out to Ezra. Or about any of this." She gestured to the table with all the documents. "And Spencer's flight leaves soon, so it's pointless to say anything to her now."

"We aren't going to tell her about Eddie?"

"She'll never leave if we do. We'll tell her when she's back on the East Coast." Emily huffed out a breath.

"She's going to yell."

"That's why I want her on the East Coast when she hears this." Emily's lips twitched, a mixture of a smirk and a grimace.

"You could use a good stern Spencer lecture. You didn't tell me Eddie was following you." Alison pinched her lips in disapproval.

"I didn't know for sure that I was being followed. I thought I was being paranoid." Emily reached out for Alison's hands.

The blonde automatically reached back.

"Clearly your instincts were right. It was just Eddie this time. But what about next time?" Alison clutched her fingers.

"Next time it will probably be one of Tanner's goons." Emily tried to shrug it off, but Alison was having none of it.

"I don't like the fact that the police are following you around. We don't know if we can trust them. Charlotte has a bunch of them on her payroll." Alison reached up and smoothed some of Emily's hair down.

"I know." Emily knew there was no sense in arguing with her girlfriend.

"Don't tell me I'm going to have to pull a Caleb and geo-tag you."

"Like you haven't been tracking my phone the past six months?" Emily pushed back with a smile.

"I can't exactly successfully do that when you don't have your location on." Alison put her hands on Emily's hips.

"What can I say? I don't trust the government. And I trust cell phone companies even less." Emily kissed her forehead and then pulled back. "But that doesn't mean I don't pay attention. Your press junket is in about an hour, right?"

"Yeah."

"You okay? I know all of this might throw you off."

"I'll be fine with my costars. It's the girls I'm worried about. I may be a good actress, but I don't know how convincing I'll be at pretending that everything is okay around our friends. I don't like lying to them. Not after everything we've been through." Alison closed the distance between where she stood and the table.

She reached for the file.

"Trust me, I get it. I feel like we're sinking to the bottom of the barrel here. I can't believe we're accepting Ezra's help." Emily walked up behind Alison, putting a comforting palm on Alison's waist. "But I don't think Eddie would have gotten involved unless this research has something in it that gives us a decent shot at stopping Charlotte."

"It was dangerous as hell getting Eddie involved. I know Wes is being threatened and that Ezra said he knew it would be more palatable coming from someone we don't hate, but if he has something to say to us he needs to stop being a chicken shit and say it to our faces." Alison frowned, her nose crinkling like she smelled something sour. "I can't believe I'm advocating for seeing that creep again. What's that saying? The enemy of my enemy is my friend."

"We're damned if we do and we're damned if we don't." Emily reached for the DNA results. "I wonder if he freaked out when we mentioned his family in that text. He did include the DNA results in his research. I bet he thought we found out about this."

"I wonder if Charlotte knows." Alison laid the DNA profiles side by side. "I mean, she's got to be the one threatening Wes, right?" She traced the results of the unknown person's DNA. "But if he's in the Middle East then he's nowhere within striking distance. So why else would Ezra be freaking out?"

"Self-preservation, maybe?" Emily guessed. "I bet the person driving that car scared the hell out of him. And it served a greater purpose, too. It was a misdirection. Charlotte's pawns obviously know Toby's routine." She flinched. She didn't like the idea of Toby being followed. "I'd bet money that they're keeping track of Ezra, too."

"You think so?" Alison asked skeptically. It seemed far-fetched, even for her sister.

"When she…" Emily felt like a vise was tightening around her throat, "When Charlotte was torturing us in high school there were layers to her madness. And I'm not talking about chess…or even 3D chess. I'm talking about a game that's beyond that. It wasn't just about strategy and moves. The way she used us in the Dollhouse…"

Emily stumbled over her words, a shuddering breath filling the silence in the air between them. She turned away so Alison couldn't see the sheer terror in her eyes. Alison reached up and put her hand against Emily's tense shoulder.

"The games she played were about how we would react to things." Emily cleared her throat and silently reached up to lay her hand on top of Alison's without looking back. "She would base her entire system on how well she could predict our actions. This…" She pointed to the large file Ezra put together, "And the car running Ezra down...it just feels like her. All the pieces are on her board. That's why I'm so sure that Ezra is just another pawn. When he came back from Europe Charlotte used that opportunity to put on a show."

"How?

"She has eyes and ears outside of Welby. I think she knew where Toby would be." She choked back bile at the thought of one of her best friends being in danger. "She knows how much Toby hates Ezra. Whoever orchestrated that reckless driving was hoping for a fight…to make Ezra look suspicious. Not that he needs any help in that department."

"I wonder why she'd involve him at all. Why risk pulling him into it?" Alison pushed some paperwork aside.

"Knowing Ezra, he probably inserted himself into the situation, though who knows what his motivation is." Emily shrugged. "But I bet Charlotte wasn't expecting Ezra to go rogue. Why would she? She'd expect him to keep his mouth shut, especially after she threatened his brother."

"It's not like it's out of character for her to threaten people who live across the world from her." Alison gestured to herself and then to Emily. "She's been a complete terror to us."

"Yes, but in her mind she has motive for that." Emily reached for Alison's hand. "She was pissed when you walked away. And she sees me as part of the reason that you left. She blames us for everything wrong in her life. I didn't help matters when I went to visit her in Welby and got that confession out of her."

"It's more than that." Alison shook her head. "She's been building to this…been building to something. You said it yourself. We're all pieces on her game board. We all have a role to play. It's how she operates. She's threatening Ezra, which means he's playing against her…because she's only nice to people who are useful. It's why Jason hasn't been caught in her crosshairs. She believes he's still on her side, though I'm not convinced he isn't."

"Your brother hasn't tried to stop us. I don't think he's helping her. I mean, he's not exactly helping us stop her either, but I don't think he's picked sides."

"You didn't grow up with him." Alison didn't seem so sure.

"He's been cooperating with the police and he told you about James being in the NAT club."

"He got mad that I brought it up. And he's pissed at the police and press presence. The last time I talked to him he told me leave him out of it." Alison sank down in her chair sadly. "He hasn't answered my calls since then. He won't even text me…and that takes zero effort. I think he resents me for putting him in the middle of this."

"You didn't put him in the middle of this, Ali. Charlotte did." Emily sat down next to her and put her hand on top of Alison's. "Why didn't you tell me you were struggling with this?"

"Because one of my siblings is trying to have us killed. I didn't feel like dragging you down talking about how mad I am at my other sibling."

"Jason is a big boy. He's made his choices." Emily thought back to the way he'd looked at her when he found out the truth about Charlotte killing their mother.

He loved Alison. There was no doubt in Emily's mind about that. But he also loved Charlotte.

"Terrible choices." Alison scoffed. "He's going to bankrupt himself trying to pay for Charlotte's care. It's not like I don't get certain expenses. I actually don't fault him for paying for her medications. I did that for a few years before I moved out here, because she truly needs those. But he pays for a lot of other stuff, too." She pressed her lips together, pinching them into a frown. "What bothers me is that she was taking advantage of me. And she's still taking advantage of him. She had money. She had someone in her corner to fund that demented Dollhouse."

She felt Emily physically flinch at the mention of the bunker. The brunette tried to hide it, but her eyes always gave her away. It was a hollow expression tentatively giving way to the horrors she'd experienced there.

"It was elaborate." Emily nodded, her voice shaking. "The replicas of the rooms, the locking mechanisms, the various spaces she used to torture us. It had to take millions to build…or renovate whatever was there before the Bunker."

Alison flipped her hand over and her palm met Emily's as their fingers naturally laced together.

"So she probably still has money coming in…somehow. Because if James isn't there to sleep with her then she's paying him somehow."

"The question is how? And does it have anything to do with the money Mr. Fitzgerald was coughing up." Emily grabbed her phone and entered her password.

She started sifting through the content until she found the encrypted file Caleb had helped her put together.

"It's too big of a coincidence for Charlotte's funding not to tie into the 36 million dollars. Caleb is still looking into the receiving bank, but he said it's almost impossible to access. Almost being the key word." Emily skimmed the bank statements. "Before I started working here I learned a lot about shell corporations."

"For what reason?" Alison was equal parts intrigued and stunned.

"Because the Alliance is a non-profit. Granted…we have a financial team who handles the legal stuff, but I've still learned how to spot red flags. This receiving bank is supposedly a charity, but there is no online presence of the charity associated with the name on the account."

"We knew the charity was probably a cover." Alison tilted her head as she pored over the files.

"Right, but I've been trying to figure out the significance of when the payments started." Emily grabbed the DNA of the unknown Fitzgerald. "Look at the dates. The first deposit was made shortly after this DNA test was run. The information about who the DNA belongs to is redacted, so we don't know how old this person was at the time. But maybe we can figure out a connection between the charity and this person's identity."

"That seems statistically impossible." Alison sighed. "And like a lot of work."

"Maybe not. If we could gain access to the account we could find out if withdrawals have been made and when they were made." Emily went back and forth between the DNA profile and the bank statements. "Charlotte built an entire underground bunker. There would be transfers or withdrawals if this is the person funding her games. And if someone is still making withdrawals that correspond to all her shady behavior then she's still being paid today. If we take a look at who she's been associating with we might figure out the identity of the mystery DNA."

"It could be anyone." Alison grimaced. "All those hotel rooms and lavish gifts on Mr. Fitzgerald's bank statements...the man is a whore."

"True." Emily nodded. "It could even be James for all we know. Maybe instead of Charlotte paying him to do her dirty work, he's the one financing the game and he sticks around for kicks. There is no mention of who his father is in his records."

"The only problem with that theory is why his mother chose to live in the middle of a tiny Alabama town. The kind of money that man was paying would have bought them a much better life." Alison reached for the files in front of them.

"Unless they had to lay low for some reason." Emily started sifting through the bank statements. "What else do we know about James? Why would he integrate himself into Rosewood…and more specifically…why with Charlotte?"

"He was part of the NAT club according to my brother, so spying has always been his MO. But now? I don't know. If he's the one paying her she might be sleeping with him. But if she's the one paying him I don't know why he'd stick around. Unless it's both." Alison tapped her fingernails against the table. "She always did like having the best of both worlds. All I know is that the money she's using is not from our family trust."

"Okay, so if it's not James the logical thing to do is look at others around her."

"She's too smart for that." Alison shook her head. "She wouldn't flaunt her investor around like that. She's like her mother when it comes to secrets."

Alison paused to think about something. A revelation coming to light. After a few seconds she let out a startled gasp.

"We don't know who Charlotte's father is. Mary never told anyone, not even mom when she adopted Charlotte. She was secretive about it. What if Mary was paid off? What if that's how Charlotte seems to have a never-ending cash-flow?" A sick churning feeling choked Alison's intestines.

"I guess that's a possibility." Emily scrutinized the dates. "Eddie said that Mary's files were redacted and that there wasn't even a mention of her pregnancy."

"My mom might have been trying to hide something. Maybe that's why Mary's records were wiped. But how does this tie into what happened to Teddy? This DNA profile was run years after he died." Alison could feel her jaw aching as she strained in thought. "And how would Ezra's father have even met Mary? She was institutionalized."

"Could he have been on the Board?"

"I don't know." Alison reached up and rubbed her aching temples. "I just don't know. God, all of this is making my head hurt. I can't afford to be this stressed right now."

She shoved the paperwork away.

"Okay, we can come back to this. Let's just take a breather." Emily turned towards the blonde. "We could go to the meditation room."

She rubbed Alison's bicep and slid her palm up to the side of her neck and leaned in and pecked her lips.

"That's a good idea." Alison walked her index and middle fingers against the base of Emily's neck, sending goosebumps down her spine, "We can take advantage of our alone time."

"In front of the lilies and ferns? So scandalous!" Emily winked with a smile.

"We'd suck all the oxygen out of that room so fast." Alison smirked, flashing a sultry look at Emily.

"You take my breath away no matter what room we're in." Emily felt her cheeks flood with warmth. She started to laugh in a bashful way that was like music to Alison's ears. "That sounded so corny."

"No. I liked it. Say more." Alison gripped her thigh, her fingers inching up as she leaned forward to capture another kiss.

"I admire your thirst for adventure, but there are windows in this room." Emily smiled when she pulled back and laid her forehead against Alison's.

"So?"

Emily shook her head and pressed her index finger against Alison's lips.

"We're going to have our own space back as soon as Hanna gets packed up and moved to the hotel."

"That's not soon enough." Alison pouted.

"It's just one more day. Caleb already has a flight booked. Didn't you see the group chat before we fell asleep last night?"

"I was too busy looking at you."

"You flirt." Emily chuckled.

She moved a few inches back and Alison growled in disapproval at the loss of contact. The blonde watched as Emily cleaned up the papers on the table. She pulled a set of keys out of her pocket and stood up and walked over to a small closet on the opposite side of the room. She unlocked the door and exposed a small filing cabinet. She unlocked the drawers and put the file inside.

"No one uses these anymore since everything is paperless." Emily locked the drawer back up and turned back towards Alison. "I'm the only one who has the keys to it. We can leave it here for safekeeping while we entertain Hanna. Then we can come back after your presser and get it."

"Is it really wise to leave our only paper trail here?"

"We can take it back to the condo and put it in the safe after the presser." Emily paused. "I suppose we could take pictures of the files, but what if something happens and the FBI wants our phones?"

"Yeah." Alison frowned. "Or if we're hacked and Charlotte finds out we have this information."

"Now that we know what Ezra was researching we know how to find that information again. That's the most important part." She locked the door and then put the keys in her pocket. She walked over to where Alison was sitting. "Come with me. I think I have an idea that will put your mind at ease."

Emily reached for her hand.

Alison smiled. She didn't know the meaning of the word no when it came to Emily, so she never said it. She took the brunette's hand and stood up.

"Meditation room?" Alison took a guess.

Emily shook her head.

"There is a trail not far from here. Sometimes when things get overwhelming it's where I go to clear my mind."

"I don't like the idea of you venturing off alone into the woods." Alison scowled.

"I'm not alone now, am I?" Emily cracked a cheeky smile.

Alison couldn't help but follow Emily into her mischief. It was endearing to see the brunette thrive in her element.

Emily took her to a trail less than half a mile behind the Alliance. There was a small opening of trees and a natural dirt trail that looked well-traveled.

"You know all this stuff with Ezra has me jumpy about predators." Alison grabbed Emily's hand. "Any big bad scary animals to worry about out here?"

"Mountain Lions are around, but not often. And to be honest I'd much rather deal with an overgrown feral cat than an Ezra." Emily smiled and squeezed her hand.

"You run into swelling waters and walk amongst giant animals that could kill you. We're going to have to have a serious talk about that when all of this is over."

"Nature is just part of my life." Emily slowed down when they heard a rustling noise.

Seconds later two chipmunks came scattering across their path, chasing each other up a tree. They squeaked and carried on like the girls weren't there. One of them pounced on the other and Emily laughed.

"Alright, play nice you two." Emily scolded.

Alison smiled, imagining what the brunette would be like as a mother. She was fierce and protective, but she was also soft and kind. She'd never thought about having kids before, but she could see it for them after they'd lived their lives a bit and were ready to settle down.

Alison followed Emily down the trail, listening to her point out flowers and trees and animal nests.

"I think I'm enjoying you in your wood nymph era." Alison admitted. She offered a teasing grin. "Do you frolic amongst the trees naked?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?" Emily lifted her brows and pulled Alison closer.

"Have you?" Alison asked in intrigue.

Emily answered her with a silent smile.

"Don't worry. I save most of the naked frolicking for you." The brunette put her arm against the small of Alison's back and moved until their bodies were flush.

"Liar." Alison moved closer. "The first time we had sex on the beach you got all bashful and shy. Am I to believe that you've been a secret nudist all this time? I'm going to need you to prove it to me."

She reached for the collar of Emily's shirt with one hand and slipped her other hand up underneath the thin material. Her fingers tickled Emily's ribs.

"I was only shy about it because I could lose my job if I got caught." Emily bit her lip and let out a shaky breath that Alison could feel against her hand.

Alison leaned forward, the feel of Emily's slick skin entrancing her. She kissed her shoulder and then the side of her neck, lingering to take in how good she smelled.

She was moving her hand up further and reaching to pull Emily's shirt off when something buzzed by her head.

"Ah!" She stumbled back and swatted at the air.

She was falling ass first towards the ground, but Emily caught her before she could land in the dirt.

"It's just a bumblebee." Emily helped her to her feet.

Alison spun around and saw a clumsy little bee bonking up against a flower like it was lost.

"Where there is one there are more." Alison stared at the little insect.

"Which is a good thing." Emily replied. "Or did you not listen to Aria's 'Save the Bees' speech two nights ago?"

"I don't trust anything with a stinger."

"They're usually pretty docile. I've walked this trail a lot. They mind their own business."

"I think I prefer making out at the beach." Alison hugged Emily to get close again.

"You know…there are sharks in the water."

Alison pulled away and saw the grin on Emily's face.

She scowled.

"Why would you put that image in my head? It's bad enough that I worry about Charlotte maiming you. You just had to add Jaws to the mix, too? I'm going to wrap you up in bubble wrap and lock you in the condo."

"Relax." Emily laughed. "I was only teasing you."

"So...there aren't sharks?"

"There are, but like little Bumble over there…" She pointed to the bee, "…they usually mind their own business."

"Has anyone told you that you're entirely too trusting?"

"My whole life." Emily reached for her hand again.

They continued on their journey. It didn't take them long to get to their destination.

The trail ended at a magnificent little waterfall. The clearing let in more sunlight than the wooded areas, creating a small rainbow within the water. The rushing water created an ambient white noise that immediately relaxed all of Alison's senses.

"It's beautiful." She peered at the scene in wonderment. "I understand why this trail appeals to you now."

"There are a lot of hidden gems out here."

"I know." Alison replied, an air of confidence in her tone as she looked directly into Emily's eyes. "I'm looking at one."

"That's a line if I've ever heard one." Emily rolled her eyes with a laugh.

"You were the one who said I take your breath away." Alison teased.

"So…that shouldn't be in our vows. Got it." Emily nodded.

"Was that an official proposal?" Alison brushed her fingers against Emily's cheek to move some hair out of her face.

"You'll know when it's official." Emily shrugged it off, much too coolly for Alison's liking.

"What would you do if I dropped down on one knee and proposed to you right now?" Alison asked.

"Scold you for getting yourself dirty before your presser, because I know your agent would not appreciate it." Emily pulled out her phone to check the time. "Speaking of which, we should get back before Hanna sends out a search party. It would be a huge red flag if we missed seeing Spencer off at the airport."

"What time is her flight?"

"Three hours after your press junket."

Alison stared at the beautiful natural sight offered to them by the earth and she sighed.

"I wish our lives were more of this…" she gestured to the waterfall, "And less generalized chaos. This tranquility is so amazing."

"We'll have more of this. I promise. We just have to get through everything else first." Emily smiled.

"Too bad everything else doesn't simply entail wild animals and briar patches. Seems less traumatizing."

"We're going to get to live our lives on our own terms, Ali." Emily kissed the top of her damp hair.

"You're kissing me even though I'm gross and sweaty." She was amused.

"I love every part of you." Emily shrugged.

"You always know just what to say to make everything feel like it will be normal again." Alison looked at the waterfall. "Even back when you saved me from Tyler and that creepy Airbnb…everything about you felt like a safe-haven." She moved closer, grabbing her hands. "You really are magical."

"I wouldn't say I'm magical. Just…temperamental and over-protective…"

"And caring." Alison added.

"I'm secretly wildly jealous and territorial." Emily lifted her brows.

"Ooh, tell me more." Alison grinned.

Before Emily could respond, her phone chimed. She pulled it out and looked at the text.

Where are you two? Are you hiding from me? Don't make me round up Max and the other kids to come find you.

"Right on time." Emily chuckled. "Hanna is going to send a search party."

"Yeah, right. She's not going to ruin her kitten heels coming out here." Alison rolled her eyes with a scoff.

"You did." Emily pointed down to Alison's fancy shoes.

They weren't exactly compatible to hiking, but she wasn't complaining.

"I don't want to go back to reality." Alison sighed, looking at the waterfall again. "Do we have to?"

"I think we do."

Alison took her sweet time as they trekked back to the Alliance.

When they went inside they found Hanna chatting with Zoe and Samara. The food had arrived, so they all had plates full of brunch items.

"We set up an area in the break room." Hanna sipped on a freshly made cup of coffee.

She scrutinized Alison and Emily, her eyes raking them over from head to toe. At first Alison was afraid someone had told her about Eddie. But then she realized she didn't look angry. She had a smirk on her face.

"You're both all sweaty. And you look guilty." Hanna took a bite of a bagel. "You two snuck away to get freaky."

Alison wasn't sure how Hanna had so badly misread the situation, but she was happy about it.

"Maybe if someone didn't keep interrupting us at home…" Alison leaned into it.

"Oh, bad move, Hanna." Zoe chuckled.

"Caleb will be here tomorrow morning and you'll have your precious privacy back." Hanna put her bagel down.

"The night of your honeymoon I am going to personally hunt you down and interrupt your evening." Emily leaned against the desk.

"You're all bark and no bite, Fields." Hanna laughed.

Alison tried to join on the laughter, but her eyes kept drifting down the hallway to the meeting room. The DNA and the bank statements were bound to open up an entirely new can of worms. And she wasn't sure she was prepared for the consequences.

She was thankful when her agent called her about her presser.

She stayed on the phone while Emily put off the cool and collected energy that she needed to work through her anxiety.

Her agent kept her busy right up until she joined her cast members on stage. Emily was standing off-stage in Alison's line of sight for support.

When they finished up their segment they rode to the airport to meet up with Hanna, Aria, and Spencer.

The girls were so obsessed over seeing her on TV that it's all they focused on. They ate a few snacks and said their goodbyes to Spencer.

They had plans to come back in the morning to pick up Caleb and drop off Aria for her flight back to Boston.

But the A-team had other plans in mind.

The text came in at 6 AM on the west coast, which was 9 AM on the east coast.

Aria was the first one to wake up and see it. She had planned to call Liam while she waited on Alison and Emily to arrive at the hotel so they could all pick up Caleb at the airport together.

When she picked up her phone there was a message from an unknown number.

It may be hot in California, but not everyone has a beach-ready body that can stand the heat. Do you know where all your friends are?

There was a picture of an indistinguishable fire. The photo was fuzzy and it was dark out, so it was hard to make out anything in it. But when she looked closer she gasped and dropped the phone.

Near the edge of the picture there was what looked to be a severed finger burning, flesh melting.

Aria leaped out of bed and rushed to the bathroom, barely making it to the toilet before her dinner from the night before came back up. She coughed a few times and then wiped her mouth with the plush hotel washcloth. She gargled some mouthwash and then raced back to her phone.

But when she looked at the screen it was blank.

She stared at it like it was ripe to explode. Then she picked it up.

"Where did it go?" She started to panic.

She scrolled through her texts searching for it, but couldn't find any remnants of the text.

She was just about to write it off as a night terror when her phone rang with a FaceTime from Hanna.

"Hanna, you wouldn't believe what…"

"Oh my God, did you get it, too?" Hanna asked.

"Yes! I thought I was crazy. I blinked and it was gone. I think…it looked like…" Aria gagged, her eyes darting to the bathroom again.

"It was." Hanna replied.

Hanna was walking towards Alison and Emily's bedroom when she heard Alison shout,

"What the fuck!?"

"Is that a body!?" Emily exclaimed.

"Screenshot it!" Hanna yelled, racing towards the door.

But by the time she got to the bedroom it was too late.

The door flung open and Alison was standing there, face pale.

"Did you get it, too?" Alison asked. "It's gone. It just disappeared. Like the message was recalled or something."

Emily was right behind her, a shaky hand on the blonde's shoulder.

"It has to be fake." Hanna looked at Aria and then at Alison and Emily. "Right?"

"Sara Harvey's ear sure as hell wasn't." Emily looked like she was going to faint. "Someone is out there burning people…I…" She gagged.

First an ear. Now severed fingers on fire. Whoever was doing this was escalating.

Alison saw a strange flash of emotion wash across Emily's face in the reflection of their mirror. She spun around and pushed Emily towards the bed, getting her there just as Emily's legs gave out beneath her.

Fire was one of her triggers, and Alison could see that she had been thrust back into the Dollhouse…

The air was thick and unbreathable.

A haunting laugh came out of the speakers.

Flames licked at her skin.

The heat was choking the life out of her.

Piercing screams of terror filled the air.

"Help! Help us!"

The smoke turned the air black.

She couldn't see anything.

But she could hear something.

Alison's voice.

"I'm here, Em."

Emily closed her eyes and when she opened them she saw Alison kneeling in front of her.

"Hey, just breathe." Alison touched her face.

"She okay?" Aria asked softly from the phone.

"I'm fine." Emily choked out. "Hanna? Aria?"

"I don't know." Hanna admitted, sitting next to her. "It reminds me of…"

"The Dollhouse." Aria finished Hanna's sentence meekly. "We need to call Spencer. Make sure she's okay."

"Oh my God. What about the boys?" Hanna's eyes widened in terror. "Crap. Caleb might already be in the air. I've got to find his flight itinerary."

"Let me call you back in a few minutes. I've got to call Liam. I need to see him…make sure he's okay." Aria was already moving to cut the call off.

Hanna nodded and they ended the call. She immediately started searching for Caleb's flight information.

"The message mentioned California. We should check on our people here, too." Emily had managed to catch her breath.

Alison scurried out of the room, but before she could go across the hall to check on Zoe and Samara she heard Hanna's phone go off.

"Oh, thank God." Hanna picked up. "Caleb…"

Alison rushed back into the bedroom and saw Caleb's face on Hanna's phone screen. Something was wrong. He was clearly rattled.

"Are you with Emily and Alison?" he asked.

"We're here." Alison looked over Hanna's shoulder. "What's going on? Why aren't you on your flight?"

"The flight was delayed due to the weather here. They're waiting on the storms to pass. But that's not why I called."

"Something happened." Emily walked into the camera's view.

His shoulders slumped and his face turned a ghostly shade of white.

"I don't know how to tell you all this, but they uh…" Caleb's eyes were solemn. His voice cracked. "They found a body. In Rosewood."

Emily let out a shuddering breath. She felt lightheaded again. She leaned against the vanity for support.

"Did you see the texts we got?" Hanna asked.

He'd been monitoring their phones trying to track where the texts were originating. Surely he'd seen it.

"You guys got a text about this?" Caleb furrowed his brows in confusion. "There was no activity that I saw indicating that."

"It had a photo." Hanna clenched her jaw. "But as soon as we opened it, it disappeared."

"That's so weird." Caleb muttered to himself.

"If you didn't see the text then how did you find out about it?" Alison was squeezing the door frame so hard she was afraid it might splinter underneath her hold.

"A few weeks ago Toby sent me a police scanner that I coded to work in areas of interest. This homicide pinged the hell out of it."

"So the picture was real." Emily brought her palm up to her mouth and choked back a nauseated groan. "Was there fire involved?"

Caleb looked surprised, then sympathetic...and then horrified that they'd seen something so terrible.

"Are you sure you want the details? They're pretty gruesome."

"What happened?" Hanna asked.

"They don't have an idea of age or sex yet. The hands and feet have been cut off and the jaw is so smashed up that dental records aren't going to be possible. And with no fingers…no fingerprints. In addition to that…it's been burned to a crisp."

"Jesus." Alison turned away.

What a horrible way to die.

"There's more." His voice softened and he looked at Emily. "Em, I'm really sorry, but the body was found in a wooded area near your house last night."

A strangled moan escaped Emily's lips.

She felt all the energy drain from her veins, the blood sinking out of her cheeks.

Not again.

Please…not again.

Typically, the news Caleb had just given would shock anyone, but it held a particularly dreadful feeling for Emily.

First Alison.

Then Maya.

Then her father.

No more.

She couldn't take the death of another loved one.

Something immediately clicked in her brain.

My mom didn't call me.

In no world would her mother not let her know what was going on if a body had been found.

"Oh my God…my mom."

"She's with Ella, Ashley, and Ted. First thing I did was checked on everyone's parents. They're okay." Caleb reassured her. "Your mom went into town with them and a few other friends to celebrate someone's birthday. They all stayed at the hotel. The police just found her and they're notifying her."

"Thank you, Caleb." Emily felt like crying. She reached for her phone. "I'm going to give her a call. I can't let her deal with this alone."

A message from Aria popped up on Emily's phone.

Spencer and Liam are both accounted for. Spence called me about the text. She tried Toby, but it went to voicemail. She's freaking out, but alive. FaceTiming Liam right now.

"Spencer and Liam are okay," Emily said.

"Do the cops think the victim is someone local?" Hanna asked. She seemed a bit more relieved knowing that her mom was okay.

"They don't know anything yet. They're looking at missing persons reports. But they don't know to look for people associated with us," Caleb said.

A horrible churning feeling clenched Alison's stomach.

"I haven't talked to my brother in over a week."

"We could try his boss." Emily suggested.

"And I can see if he's on any CCTV footage around town." Caleb tried to reassure her.

"His boss won't tell us anything. And CCTV footage isn't good enough. Video can easily be faked."

Especially if someone in the police department was on Charlotte's payroll.

Alison reached for her phone and rapidly started composing a text.

Weekly check in to make sure you're not drunk or dead in a ditch somewhere.

"Could we have Toby check in on him?" Hanna asked.

Caleb's face went white again.

"I uh…I haven't spoken to him in two days." His voice sounded small and afraid, a child without the guidance of a parent.

Emily dropped her phone in shock.

"Spencer tried him a few minutes ago, but it went to voicemail."

"Okay, let's not panic. When is the last time someone talked to him?" Caleb asked.

"He called Spencer the day before yesterday, but when she tried to call him before her flight yesterday he didn't pick up. Spencer had been expecting him to answer, so she thought it was odd. She chalked it up to his cell being in an area with no service. But with him not answering this morning…" Emily felt panic setting in.

"Spencer has a point about the cell phone coverage. Sometimes his builds are in areas with crappy reception." Caleb tried to keep the explosion at bay. "We don't even know for sure this is related to Charlotte."

"Nothing in that town happens without Charlotte having a hand in it." Alison's jaw tightened.

"This doesn't feel right." Emily rubbed her eyes where a building pressure was mounting. "He doesn't let Spencer's calls go unanswered. Ever."

If Charlotte did something to him…

Emily had to fight back her anger, because if Charlotte hurt Toby it was going to be all-out war.

She tried his number and grumbled when it went to voicemail.

"Toby call me…or Spencer. Or someone. Just let us know you're okay." Just as she was hanging up, a call from her mother came through.

Emily walked out of the room to answer it.

"This is a lot." Caleb had an intense look in his eyes. "I'm wondering if I should cancel my flight and go to Rosewood instead…"

"No!" Hanna cut him off. "No, I want you here with me."

"Okay. I'm going to have to reconfigure some of the things I packed. I wasn't expecting this trip to come complete with a murder investigation. I've got to make sure my equipment gets there safely."

"I don't care about your equipment." Hanna pouted. "I only care that you get here safely."

Alison stared at her phone, willing Jason to answer her.

The minutes that passed felt like hours.

She clutched her phone at her side as she walked off to find Emily.

The brunette was sitting in the kitchen, phone to her ear and leaning forward.

"You haven't talked to him either?" Emily's tone was hushed.

Her mother said something in response and Emily sighed.

"I don't know, mom. I really don't. I'm sorry I'm not there." A pause. "I'm sorry it happened again."

Alison watched hundreds of micro-expressions flooding Emily's eyes. She was reliving the night that Maya's body had been found. She had fallen apart at the seams back then.

Tears threatened to spill from Emily's eyes, but she managed to push her emotions down.

Alison wanted to comfort her, but she also wanted to give her the space she needed.

She looked at her phone again, hoping for a response from her brother.

Goddamn it, Jason. Answer me.

She could hear Hanna trying not to cry. She could feel her unparalleled fear. She knew Emily was barely holding it together. And she knew that Aria and Spencer were falling apart, too.

If chaos is what Charlotte had wanted, she had succeeded.

But Alison was a DiLaurentis, too. And she was no stranger to chaos.

As she watched the emotional turbulence around her she came to one single conclusion. She was going to rain fire upon the heads of the people who were torturing her loved ones. Regrets would be aplenty when she fired the next shot.

You may have started the game, Charlotte. But come hell or high water…I'm going to finish it.

---

A/N: Surprise! More murder! Wouldn't be PLL without murder, mystery, and mayhem. And of course...the fluffiest of fluffy Emison moments. Between visits from old friends (E. Lamb isn't so silent anymore), mystery DNA, and burning corpses...the heart of the fic is our lovebirds. The question is...can they handle the heat?